


wearing a warning sign

by staystreetfriend



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, References to Depression, and it's interesting to explore the psychological effects that kind of abuse can have on someone, because yes the five hundred baskets thing was child abuse or at the very least child neglect, kelly joseph is pretty crazy, this is about the five hundred baskets thing, tyler basically feels like he deserves pain, tyler's brand honestly, why am i writing so much here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 08:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15360585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staystreetfriend/pseuds/staystreetfriend
Summary: it should be so simple.





	wearing a warning sign

**Author's Note:**

> since i basically wrote everything that should go here in the tags (i don't fucking know why i did that okay but there's no going back) i have nothing more to say except that the title is from "you should see me in a crown" by billie eilish and i hope you guys enjoy this little fic :)
> 
> don't come at me about the five hundred baskets thing. i know it's in the past but that kind of thing is still a b u s e and it can/does leave victims with many emotional bruises including perfectionism (look it up).

it should be so simple.

 

five hundred baskets. tyler is to shoot five hundred baskets after he gets home from school every day, or he doesn’t get dinner. it is so simple, and yet, tyler always _has_ been great at failing to meet expectations.

 

he’s thirteen the first time he fails to shoot five hundred baskets. sure, he always has more than enough time to _do_ it, he’s never really rushing to get it done before his family sits down for dinner, but sometimes he’s tired. sometimes tyler just wants to go to his room, lie on his floor, and pray for the earth to swallow him whole.

 

so, when he’s thirteen, after having a horrible day at school, that is exactly what he does.

 

by the time dinner rolls around, his mother knows he hasn’t shot five hundred baskets. he hasn’t shot one. _of course_ she knows. tyler knows that going downstairs would be futile, because his mom does not _bluff_ , but he goes downstairs anyway.

 

he doesn’t even want dinner. he doesn’t have an appetite, and even if he did, he knows that he doesn’t _deserve_ dinner, but he goes downstairs. his little sister is doing silverware while their mom is placing rolls on the table. she looks up and makes eye contact with tyler. she hardly even looks disappointed, but he feels it anyway.

 

tyler doesn’t get dinner. by the end of the night, he’s hungry, of course, but it’s not as bad as he thought it would be. it’s there to remind him that he fucked up.

 

how could he feel resentment at all when he knows that?


End file.
